New Android Trojan Which Gains Device Administrator Status Without You Even Knowing It!

June 8, 2013

Kaspersky, one of the leading IT security firms has discovered the most sophisticated trojan which enters your Android device, sends SMS without letting you know, downloads other malware & spreads it using bluetooth! If that’s not enough, this trojan secretly gets device administrator status, allows others to remotely control your device and makes it impossible for you to delete it!

This trojan has been named “Backdoor.AndroidOS.Obad.a” by Kaspersky which also names it as the deadliest trojan that could ever enter your Android smartphone or tablet!

Backdoor.AndroidOS.Obad.a has been well-coded and most of the code has been obfuscated. Obad uses several Android security loopholes and the creators of this deadly virus have made use of an error present in the popular APK to JAR conversion software DEX2JAR.

Once this trojan enters your device and is executed, it immediately tries to obtain Device Administrator status and once it gets that, your phone has a new owner! By owner I mean your device can now be remotely controlled, malware can be downloaded and spread automatically.

The problem with this trojan is that, once the installed malware gets administrator privilege, it’s nearly impossible to delete it! This is because it’s not listed as an application with device administrator privileges but it still enjoys them!

It’s difficult for a normal user to identify this trojan since it performs most of the work silently. Also this trojan lacks an interface. It works silently in the background. So you won’t even know if the trojan is installed on your device and if it’s running.

This menace is not wide-spread and affects less than 0.15% of all Android devices. Google has already been informed regarding this trojan and in the next Android update we might probably see the loopholes cleared.

For time being, you can use an antivirus. I recommend using Kaspersky Mobile Security. I use the premium version myself and I’m happy with it. I’ve it installed on all my Android devices and no virus has dared to enter my smartphone so far ;/0